1979
In 1974 or 1975 I borrowed a blouse pattern, issued in 1971, from a friend and made this blouse. I LOVED it and wore it all the time. After 12 years it was pretty delicate and threadbare so I thought I’d make a new one. I contacted my friend and we went through her hundreds of patterns and it wasn’t there.
In 1988 I took up the search again, writing to the pattern companies asking about it. But without a number they were unable to help me. So sadly I put the blouse safely away in the cedar closet.
Fast forward to 2017 and the Internet! I had come across a vintage apron pattern I liked and was searching for a source for it. It slowly dawned on me that I probably could do the same for the blouse!
I started by determining what the style of sleeve was called: dolman. Once I had that, I started searching for patterns for blouses with dolman sleeves. It took a long time, but I eventually found a re-issued pattern, not the original.
That gave me a number to search with and I got lucky! I found a single pattern on e-bay for $5.49, free shipping! So now I had the pattern, I just needed material.
I belong to a worldwide network of hyper-local gift economy called BuyNothing: http://buynothingproject.org/ One of the members of my local group had offered a lot of sewing material a couple years back and another had recently offered ribbon, seam binding, elastic, etc. I was the lucky recipient and I was in business.
It took me at least 20 hours, seriously. The cognitive stuff is a bear when sewing. I had to check, double check, triple check to make sure I had laid it out correctly before I cut.
Then even though the instructions are fairly simple, sometimes I got confused and would have to double check to make sure I was going to be sewing the correct pieces together. I even got brave and used some of the lace around the collar!
The old blouse had a toggle and loop closure but with the lace I wanted something fancier, so I used some of the ribbon.
But I did it, and didn't mess up!